Henry V Glenn Gordon, left, with Ty Jones, in the title role of this Classical Theater of Harlem production at the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial & Educational Center.Credit
Ty Cacek/The New York Times

At the beginning of the Classical Theater of Harlem’s “Henry V” actors who have been milling around and chatting with audience members slowly start to leave the casual and the quotidian behind. Someone beats out time with sticks. A chant begins, an eerie invocation: “O, for a muse of fire” — the first words of this Shakespeare play.

But then gears shift, and the actors perform a ditty about turning off cellphones, unwrapping candy and not talking during the show. O, muse! O, candy wrapper?

The ditty may be clever, but it kills the just-established mood. And precious minutes of a fast, but not always furious 90-minute “Henry V” are wasted.

As directed by Jenny Bennett, this “Henry” giveth and taketh. At its best it has an engaging immediacy, conveying a sense of what can be done in a theater with limited means. But it is also occasionally hampered by those means, and can have a frustrating lack of interpretive focus.

Henry — the king who leads the English into battle to press his slender claim to the French throne — is a man of action. And Ms. Bennett stages action well. Making their way to France, the English soldiers hang on the set’s sculptural scaffolding, which the swaying of their bodies transforms into a ship. (Anka Lupes did the minimal set design.)

Fights go like this: A man kicks his leg or swings his fist, and across the stage another man ducks or takes it on the chin. Bardolf’s hanging is a simple matter of the actor (Lelund Durond Thompson) jerking his head to the side and standing frozen.

Photo

Fedna Jacquet, center, in "Henry V."Credit
Ty Cacek/The New York Times

While individual bits are inventive, the play can be hard to follow, probably because of cuts and of actors who fail to project. The first act, especially, has problems.

Perhaps Ms. Bennett was worried that no one would listen to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s long speech, providing Henry with a flimsy pretext to go to war. So it gets goosed up. Played by Carine Montbertrand (a few roles are cast gender blind, including Stephanie Berry’s thoughtful King of France), Canterbury cackles and carries on like the Wicked Witch of the West. It’s not just that Ms. Montbertrand seems like she would chew the scenery if weren’t made of metal and wood. Or that this stops the play cold. It’s that you have to wonder about Henry (Ty Jones).

How does he listen to this sophist and then earnestly ask if he can, “with right and conscience,” make a claim to the French throne? Right and conscience have already left the building.

The scene is baffling because this Henry is no dope. As played by Mr. Jones, who has a wonderfully relaxed way of speaking Shakespeare’s words, he’s a confident, mostly even-tempered man, a charmer with a ready smile and ready wit. There are only hints of the darker, Machiavellian king whom Auden lumped with Richard III in scoundrel territory.

If Ms. Bennett’s choices don’t all add up, some are shrewd. For example, Fluellen (Warren Jackson), whose Welshness sets him apart from the other soldiers, here has a Caribbean accent to mark his difference.

This “Henry V” is the Classical Theater of Harlem’s first full-scale production in two years and since its reorganization under new management. (Mr. Jones is the company’s producing director and board chairman.) Let’s first wish for it this: a new home. The Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial & Educational Center, where the production is being performed, won’t do long term. The theater space is makeshift, and the acoustics are bad.

And let’s also wish for it time enough to find its voice — or voices — and to thrive. This “Henry V” may be flawed, but let a thousand Henrys bloom uptown. And a few Lears. And some Euripides too.

A version of this review appears in print on August 18, 2011, on page C6 of the New York edition with the headline: A Kingdom for a Stage, Princes to Act ...and Maybe a Better Hall?. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe